Former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) failed to appear in court again
yesterday to face charges of embezzlement, citing a statement from the
National Taiwan University (NTU) Hospital that suggested appearing in court
could be injurious to her health.

“The former lady had decided to appear in court, but she reluctantly agreed
to abide by the National Taiwan University Hospital’s statement and respect
professional opinion,” her attorney, Lee Sheng-hsiung (李勝雄), told a press
conference at former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) office.

...

Lee said NTU hospital issued a statement at 3:30pm on Thursday afternoon,
which said Wu might suffer from low blood pressure, shock or face a
life-threatening situation considering the mental pressure and other stress
she would face by appearing in court.

Lee said he told Wu about the statement and she had decided to respect the
hospital’s suggestion. She notified the prosecutors at about 7:30 pm on
Thursday.

Lee said the court had listed the statement as a permanent classified
document.

Lee left the press conference after making the announcement, refusing to
take any questions.

On the other side:

Meanwhile, a hospital spokesman said a diagnosis certificate to excuse Wu
from court had not been issued.

Spokesman Tan Ching-ting (譚慶鼎) said the statements issued by the hospital on
Aug. 21 and Sept. 17, in response to requests from the Taipei District
Court, contained the same medical assessment of Wu’s state of health.

“We regret that the official correspondence was misinterpreted,” Tan said,
adding that the statements were kept confidential to protect patient
privacy.

Department of Health (DOH) Minister Lin Fang-yue (林芳郁), who was the
hospital’s superintendent before joining the new government, said Wu’s
lawyer had “over-interpreted” the statement the hospital gave the court.

He said the hospital statement was not specifically written about Wu’s
condition but a reminder of what things a court should take into
consideration when a paralyzed person is questioned.

So the readers can decide themselves about what to conclude.

The Taipei Times went on to look for the reactions from lawmakers.
But this was decidedly one-sided.

“She cannot hide forever and as a former first lady she should not trash
the judicial system like this. She should bravely face the law,” Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Ching-chih (吳清池) said.

On the legislative floor, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) was asked by KMT
Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) about Wu’s repeated refusal to appear in court, but
Liu declined to respond. Minister of Justice Wang Ching­-feng (王清峰) filled
in for Liu, saying officials should refrain from giving instructions to
judges on how to handle a case under examination.

Why couldn't they get a quote from any lawmakers on the other side of the
fence? Well, it is possible that it would embarrassing to the 'green'
lawmakers and Taipei Times would not want that to happen, would they? It
is also possible the the 'green' lawmakers made themselves unavailable because
they know where the public opinion stands.

(Apple
Daily) (534 persons interviewed by interactive voice system on
September 19, 2008)

What do you think of Wu Shu-jen's seventeenth non-appearance in court?
79.4%: She is in contempt of court
12.4%: Life is more important and she can still appear in the future
8.2%: Don't know/no opinion

Also not reported by the Taipei Times are the social stories that reflect
the prevalent mood:

The political forum at the big Internet portal
telnet://ptt.cc ran a betting pool on what Wu Shu-jen was going to do.
Each bet is worth 100 virtual P dollars, and the people who guessed the
right outcome gets to divide the pool total.

Out of 5,868 bets,
61.2% bet that Wu would be a no-show and won;
20.3% bet that Wu would show up;
16.9% bet that Wu would show up and then put on the fainting act;
1.7% bet that the court date would be changed.

In Taipei county, an unemployed man went to the park and committed
suicide by hanging himself. His body was discovered early in the
morning. He left a five-page letter behind with instructions that
included: "When Chen Shui-bian is convicted in court, please burn a
newspaper for me to read."

The trial of Zhou Zhenglong will be taking place next week. There
is now a question about his lawyer, which is important to a fair trial.

Luo Dacui, the wife of Zhou Zhenglong, told Southern Metropolis Daily
yesterday: "After the arrest of Zhou Zhenglong, many lawyers offered their
services for free. But these free lawyers were all rejected by the
public procuratorate. Then the local lawyer Zhang Yong called up to
offer his services for a fee. My family is in dire economic hardship
now. When Zhou Zhenglong was arrested, the 20,000 yuan in reward money
was confiscated by the police, together with more than 1,900 yuan in cash.
I was not willing to spend money so I told Zhang Yong that I would consult
with my family first. After a while, Zhang Yong showed up with an IOU
of 2,000 yuan for legal fees. The slip was signed by Zhou Zhenglong.
Zhang Yong also said that Zhou has committed a serious crime. I was
very angry and I said, 'What kind of lawyer are you? We are supposed
to spend money on you to defend my husband, but you talk this way instead.
Afterwards, Zhang Yong declined to disclose any developments of the case to
the family."

At this time, Luo Dacui said that the trial is going to take place very
soon, and it would be too late to hire another lawyer.

Previously, on July 4, lawyer Gu and a colleague came to Shaanxi to meet
with Luo Dacui and her son. After discussion, they agreed to hire
lawyer Gu as the defense lawyer for no fee. An agreement was even
signed. July 5 and 6 was Saturday and Sunday. On July 7, lawyer
Gu and his colleague went to the public security bureau to apply as defense
lawyers. But the receptionist said that the person in charge is in a
meeting in the county capital and asked them to return the next day.
On July 8, they returned and the person in charge told them that Zhou
Zhenglong has already hired lawyers. However, he told them to return
the next day to get the names of the lawyers. On July 9, lawyer Gu
returned with his lawyer and was told that Zhou Zhenglong has hired two
local lawyers, one of whom of Zhang Yong.

Lawyer Gu was very perplexed. Zhou Zhenglong was being held in a
detention center and now allowed to meet outsiders. So how did
Zhang Yong get to see him to reach any agreement? When Luo Dacui was
informed that Zhou Zhenglong had spent 2,000 yuan to hire a lawyer, she
wanted to speak to him. In July, she went three times to the public
security bureau but was not allowed to see her husband.

The reporter spoke to Zhang Yong by phone yesterday. When did he
become the defense lawyer for Zhou Zhenglong? It was a long time ago.
How did he become the defense lawyer? Zhang Yong bristled at the
question and said: "Why are you interviewing me? If this is what you
want to know, you shouldn't bother calling again?" When the reporter
asked whether he was the lawyer appointed by the government, he repeated
what he said before.

Zhang Yong said that he had been the lawyer for Qiu Qinghua (note: a mass
murderer who killed ten people in a rampage in Shaaanxi) before. In
that case, he did not ask for a mental examination. Qiu Qinghua said
that Zhang Yong was not appointed by him. Zhang Yong said that he was
hired by a mysterious person to act in that case. On the time before
the charges were officially filed, a person who claimed to be a friend of
Qiu Qinghua came to his office and asked him to be the lawyer.
Afterwards, the person never showed up again. The person never left
his name, and he only left a non-working mobile phone number.

It is hard to see how Zhang Yong can represent the best interests of Zhou
Zhenglong. Whereas the other lawyers volunteered their efforts, he was
designated by the authorities; whereas the other lawyers were willing to
work for free, he is charging money; whereas the other lawyers say that Zhou
Zhenglong is not guilty, he says that Zhou Zhenglong is guilty of serious
crimes. Even now, he is still unsure if he really wants to defend Zhou
in court, because he has not been paid yet.

Apart from swindling the government with the fake South China tiger
photos, Zhou Zhenglong is also charged with illegal possession of firearms.
Here is his wife's explanation of the latter charges.

- Possession of one wooden-handle pistol: This was a dysfunctional relic
left from the 1970's.

- Possession of 2.5 kilograms of dynamite and more than a dozen
detonators: In the 1980's, the government organized a campaign to irrigate
the fields. The village brigade issued these items to its members.
Today, many other people still have those items at their homes.

- Possession of 93 bullets: When the provincial scientific study team
came down to the town, Zhou Zhenglong led them up the mountain. He was
given a rifle and 100 bullets for self-defense (against tigers!).
After the trip was over, the team took back the rifle and left the unspent
bullets there. In the 1970's, Zhou Zhenglong was a militia man.
The village government distributed about a dozen rifles to its militia.
Zhou Zhenglong receivfed a rifle as well as some bullets. He also
bought some bullets for hunting.

After the Sanlu milk powder case broke open, the celebrity spokespersons
Deng Jie, the Flower Band, Xue Jianing, Jiang Wenli and others were
pilloried by the public. Their agents, family members and friends
pleaded innocence on their behalf. Some commentators even felt that
they were wrongfully blamed. But the celebrities themselves did not
make any public appearances. I don't think that they are that innocent
and I don't think that they should be evading the issue.

What is a brand? Strictly speaking, it is the reputation that a
brand accumulates among consumers over a long period of time. The
reforms in China have been happening for only thirty years. Each year,
many brands became big names through advertising, especially with celebrity
endorsements. Since China is such a huge market with few or no
regulations, it is easy for celebrities to earn money while being less
demanding and rigorous.

A celebrity is a person with influence in society. Businesses
naturally seek them out as spokespersons. It is also natural for them
to trade their influence for money. However, their influence is a
brand in itself. When this brand is used to promote another brand, the
interests of the two are tied together. If there is a win, it is a
double win; if there is a loss, it is a double loss. Everybody knows
that trust is a pre-condition for doing business. Over the years, some
celebrities have been known to tell straight-faced lies to deceive
consumers. Even if the products are okay, their images ought to have
gone bankrupt. The situation now is that many children have been hurt
because of the deception in this case.

There are two types of celebrity advertisements. One is an image
ad, such as the co-placement of Liu Xiang's face next to the Nike logo
accompanied by vacuous phrases such as "Friendship first, competition
second" and so on. There is no deception issue here. But if Nike
gets into trouble, Liu Xiang's image would suffer as well. Conversely,
if Liu Xiang gets into trouble, Nike may have to think of a way to "save its
market" including jettisoning him. Every business carries risks, and
there is no perfect arrangement with zero downside. If you happen to
encounter the wrong partner, you can only blame your own bad luck and you
should stop complaining.

There is another kind of celebrity advertisement in China. In these
advertisements, the celebrities play the role of salespersons. They
tell lies with sincere expressions to trick people. Now that would be
deception. If Liu Xiang says, "I only wear Nike" but he actually wears
Li Ning brand shoes, then even a 3-year-old child knows that this is a lie.
So let us listen to Deng Jie's advertisement: "I am very picky when it comes
to baby milk powder. It has to be professionally manufactured; its
quality has to be guaranteed; it has to be a famous brand because that would
reassure me; it must also be economical. I trust Sanlu baby milk
powder!" The message is clear: I, Deng Jie, have chosen Sanlu after
poring over many choices. Is that true?

The celebrity may explain, "I am only acting in a commercial, just like
in a drama show." NOT! When you are acting, everybody knows that
you are playing the role of Wang Xifeng (note: a character in <Dream of the
Red Chamber>) and you are not Deng Jie herself. The words of Wang
Xifeng do not represent the will of Deng Jie. But a celebrity
endorsement is different unless you make it clear that the role that you are
playing is not Deng Jie but it is Wang Jie, a junior salesperson at the
Sanlu Company.

According to media reports, advertising laws in the western world
stipulate that spokespersons (such as movie stars, celebrities, experts and
persons of authority) must be authentic users or else it becomes false
advertising; at the same time, if the wording of the ad suggests that the
product is superior in some way, then there must be some factual basis for
the assertion. Pat Boone, Michael Jackson and others have gotten into
trouble over false advertising, for which they were condemned or fined.
In Japan, a celebrity has to apologize to the public for making false
advertisements as well as face the risk of career termination. In
France, the television host Gilbert went to jail for exaggerating the
effectiveness of a product.

Please note that people are now deploring the Sanlu spokespersons not
over some mild exaggeration but because they were promoting tainted milk
powder which has caused kidney ailments among several thousand babies
including three deaths already. This is a serious food safety crisis.
Are the spokespersons really unaware that many mothers trusted them and
bought the milk powder after seeing their ads? Under such
circumstances, even if you didn't realize before that the milk powder was
tainted, shouldn't you come out to make an apology for promoting it?

The celebrities felt the most misgiving about not being able to test the
quality of the products themselves. They all claimed to have read the
quality test reports from the authoritative government departments, the
certificates of honor and so on. All the documents were stamped with
red seals of approval. But the situation is simple. The
authoritative government departments have misled the celebrities, who misled
the public in turn. The normal reaction for the celebrities is to be
outraged. They should come out to explain what happened and to condemn
the relevant departments. They should not be like turtles coiling up
into their shells. Don't celebrities claim to have social
responsibility? In truth, social responsibility is an important
component of the brand equity of the celebrity that is used to earn money.
This so-called social responsibility is not just donating small sums of
money. It is about coming forth at a time of crisis to help society to
make progress! Besides, you were involved in creating this crisis as
well!

Last month, Taiwan legislator Li Jun-yi spent NT$200,000 to purchase a
T-bar outdoor advertisement by the expressway with the words "Please Don't
Persecute Ah Bian." The ad was pronounced to be illegal by the
Kaohsiung expressway authority for violating the regulation that no ads
shall appears within 50 meters of the road itself. This T-bar was
measured to be 37 meters from the road. Consequently, this is clearly
a violation. But what is problematic is that the T-bar has been
present at the location for more than 2 years. So why was it not an
issue until a political message on behalf of former president Chen Shui-bian?
The spokesperson for the expressway authority said: "This is not directed
any person. This is not directed against any content. This is
just a routine operation."

Legislator Li Jun-yi led a group of supporters to protest the take-down
of the ad after only 23 days. He said: "I urge more people to spend
more money to purchase more political ads in more places!"

Yesterday was September 18, which is a day of infamy akin to December 7
in the United States of America (see Wikipedia).

On this day, Hong Kong was swept by a mania for Japanese milk powder, as
large numbers of mainland Chinese crossed the borders to make purchases in
large amounts. In turn, the local Hong Kong residents also stocked up
for themselves because they were afraid that supplies would run out.

In Mongkok, a store that specializes in selling Japanese milk powder put
up a sign: "Wholesale orders of Meiji milk powder temporarily halted; only
retail orders will be accepted." The store people said that there had
been too many mainlanders buying up large numbers: "They buy them by
the carton. Each carton has 200 cans, and they buy 5 cartons at a
time." Some mainlanders even came in and offered HKD 5 extra per
carton.

At another emporium in Causeway Bay, a Hong Kong parent said: "I see the
mainlanders show up with rolls of cash and buy several hundred cans at a
time. My son consumes the Japanese milk powder. I am worried so
I am buying a carton of eight cans for now."

[023] The Most Awesome
Municipal Administrator In Chongqing (09/19/2008)

In Chongqinq, a netizen took a photo of a municipal administrator sitting
on a stool chatting with an unlicensed peddler of mobile phone accessories.
It is the normal duty of the municipal administrator to evict unlicensed
peddlers. Was this the much ballyhooed "civilized law enforcement"
that was advanced after the spate of reported violence by municipal
administrators around China? Or was it operating his own small,
unlicensed business?

On September 12, the photo series entitled <The Most Awesome Municipal
Administrator In Chongqing> was posted at QQ.com. A municipal
administrator named Wang was seen sitting cross-legged and chatting with
unlicensed street vendors. The photos were quickly circulated around
the Internet. On September 1, the South Shore District Joint
Administrative and Enforcement Division reported that Wang has been fired
from his job. Unexpectedly, the announcement drew sympathy from the
majority of netizens. People declared that it was an act of violence
to summarily dismiss this municipal administrators. Others wondered if
municipal administrators are required to overturn stands and beat people in
order not to be fire.

[022] The Three Duan's
Of Shanxi (09/18/2008) In
The Shanxi Mudslide: Field Notes By Reporter Huang Xiuli,
the reporter described the mine boss Zhang Peiliang as an associate of the Three
Duans and therefore extremely powerful. There is no further explanation
about who or what the Three Duans are. This is either a case that
everybody can be assumed to know already (but clearly many people don't) or else
the parties are too powerful to cross. This story of the Three Duan's is
provided in this week's Yazhou Zhoukan (September 28, 2008). The author of
the this article is Huang Li, which may be a pseudonym of the reporter Huang
Xiuli.

...

The Taikuan mine located on Tai'er Mountain was originally a property of
the Linfen Steel Company, which is a large state-owned company.
Several years ago, the media reports showed that the Tai'er Mountain has
iron deposits up to 27 million tonnes. However, Linfen Steel found it
to difficult to continue after extracting only 4 million tonnes. In
October 1998, the Linfen Steel Company was merged into the Taiyuan Steel
Company. In October 2005, the Sanxi State Land Resources put the
Taikuan mine up for auction. At the time, Linfen Steel was losing as
much as 5 million yuan per year.

The first person to take over the Taikuan mine was a Yicheng citizen
named Ji Haibin. According to information, the opening bid price was
60 million yuan but Ji had to pay more than 1 billion yuan to win. In
order to placate the other bidders, he gave them 5 million yuan each.

According to informed sources, the first thing that Ji Haibin did after
taking over ownership was to take back the many mines that were leased out
to sub-contractors by Linfen Steel. But he was not successful.
Over the course of a year, he took his Hubei sub-contractors to oust the
Sichuan sub-contractors who were entrenched. There were mass fights
involving hundreds of people at Mining Zones 1360 and 1210. A worker
recalled that Ji fought from hill top to hill top in fierce conditions.
The Linfen public security bureau's Dongcheng station also send police
officers over to help. But the efforts cam to no avail.

Finally, Ji Haibin realized that he could not gain a foothold by himself
and therefore he sold the Taikuan mine to another Yicheng citizen
Zhang Peiliang, who is the person who controls the Xintai Mining Company
now. When the dam burst on September 8, 2008, Zhang Peiliang was
detained b the police. The word in the mining community was that
"Zhang Peiliang is going to die at Taikuan sooner or latter."

Zhang Peiliang was once a chauffeur at the Linfen Mining Company.
He is in his 50's, medium built, small and thin like an old peasant.
He is very sharp. He started in the chemical industry and branced into
mining. He has assets in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Liaoning and other
places. He is said to be worth several hundred million yuan.
Unexpectedly in this case, Zhang Peiliang was very successful in reclaiming
the mines from the sub-contractors. According to informed sources, the
then Linfen public security bureau executive vice-president Duan Bo
contributed a lot of help. A large number of police officers were sent
out to deal with the sub-contractors who gave up readil. Duan Bo's
reward was a 50% share in the Xintai Mining Company.

Duan Bo is one of three siblings of the Duan family in Linfen city.
The eldest brother is Duan Xin, who is the mayor of Hongdong county.
Duan Bo is the second oldest, and he is presently the director of the
Yuncheng city public security bureau. Duan Xia is the youngest sister
and she is the Linfen city Yaodu district treasury department director.
The three of them are known as the Three Duan's. In Linfen, there is a
doggerel: "The money of the Zhou family, the power of the Duan family."
The Zhou family refers to the former Treasury Department director named
Zhou. The Duan family refers to the three siblings.

In 2006, the State Land Resources issued a schedule for the
re-organization of state resources. Among the non-coal mining
properties was Tai'er Mountain. The State Safety Production
Supervisory Agency has also listed the mining area as a keypoint to monitor.
So why was Zhang Peiliang still able to control this dangerous location?
This is because there is an international shortage of iron and mining is a
highly profitable enterprise.

The Xintai Mining Company owns eleven different mines. The
organization model has Zhang Peiliang as the big boss who sub-contracts the
mines to sub-contractors, who gives them to sub-sub-contractors, who gives
them to sub-sub-sub-contractors until it gets to the foremen who hires the
workers. At the oldest mine (Number 980) of the company, the mine can
produce as much as 2,000 tons of iron ore per day with a maximum price of
800 yuan per ton. The cost includes 50 yuan per ton to the foreman, 50
yuan per ton for management fees and the boss receives a net profit of 1.4
million yuan per day.

But a foreman from Chongqing had a different set of accounting. He
believes that a good mine can yield 500 to 600 tons of ore per day.
Recently, the price of iron has dropped to 600 to 700 yuan per ton.
The cost of labor has increased, so that the foremen gets 60 to 70 yuan per
ton and the management fees are also 60 to 70 yuan per ton.
Nevertheless, the mine boss is still reaping heavy profits.

Apart from the Xintai Mining Company, there are 80 or 90 more mines owned
by other people at Tai'er Mountain. Most of them have no permits.
A veteran worker said that if not for the media report, he would never have
guessed that the company was so big but also without any safety permits or
mining permits.

Another mine worker thought that the mines were unsafe because there is
no ventilation or emergency evacuation plans. The mines would never
pass the annual inspections. Yet, because Zhang Peiliang is so
powerful, he can continue to operate without the permits. An official
with the Linfen Safety Production Supervisory Agency said that Zhang
Peiliang is too powerful for anyone at the Xiangfen county level to deal
with ...

Opposition rate for Taiwan independence:83%: September 2007
82%: December 2007
80%: March 2008
81%: June 2008
79%: September 2008

Opposition rate for Tibet independence:69%: September 2007
69%: December 2007
71%: March 2008
82%: June 2008
80%: September 2008

[ESWN Comment: What do the trends about Tibet indicate? The March 14
Llasa 'uprising' raised the opposition rate by 10% and made approval of Tibet
independence even more remote.

Nevertheless, if you check the Hong Kong media reporting, there is much
more discussion about Tibet independence than Taiwan independence. Why?
The answer is simple: Sex
sells. To get exposure for Taiwan independence in Hong Kong, a
human face/body is needed. Of course, more 'exposure' does not mean that
the cause is going to get more popular.]

1. Ever since I started a blog, I have been rude in I don't reply to
readers' comments due to my busy schedule. But I have never deleted a
single comment, even if it is the most severe reprimand or the most frank
insult. Such is my personal belief.

2. I have said so before and I will say so again. The Sina.com blog
(under my name) is not mine and I have not even gone there for at least six
months.

3. I do not administer the forum related to my television program on
Phoenix TV and I rarely go there. I don't even know who the
administrator is, or what the standards are. If you have a complaint,
please contact the webmaster there.

4. I can only issue a call to all the relevant administrators (including
the one at Bullog.cn): please do not publish my workd unless you have
to; but please preserve all readers' comments. Freedom of press is not
just a right that you fight to get from the authorities; it is also a duty
that we will fight for to our death.

5. As my friends know, the basic requirements from my various work
obligations leave me with less than 5 hours of sleep every day. I
don't have any leisure family hours or social time. I usually eat on
our home, listen to music on my own and watch movies on my home in order to
save time. I meet with my schoolmates only at weddings and funerals.
When I meet with my old friends at forums, I often feel guilty. As
such, I have not been able to return any attention. I am also
dim-witted because I don't know how to type and I can only input through
handwritten characters. If I have to to reply to every comment, it
will take at least one hour a day. I am not willing to take one hour
from my reading, my writing, my meetings, my schedule, my teaching or my
sleep. A media worker must be able to satisfy the audience and a
scholar must not shed his basic duties. Therefore, I ask you to
forgive me for my impoliteness.

[ESWN Comment: It is an interesting phenomenon for a celebrity
intellectual to have his essays being reproduced on unauthorized blogs under
his name. Why would anyone do that? Well, have you heard of Google
Ad-sense?]

Front page of Taobao with headline of Baidu as the biggest
criminal organization on the Internet for the Sanlu tainted milk powder

From Baidu:

On September 16, 2008, the Baidu spokesperson formally addressed the
media to condemn the rumors spread by Alibaba against Baidu over the Sanlu
affair.

On September 12, some netizen posted a document titled <Crisis Public
Relations Recommendations For Sanlu> which disclosed that the Sanlu PR
people had approached Baidu to delete all negative information about Sanlu.
This document was quickly misread and turned into the rumor: <Baidu took 3
million RMB to delete all negative information about Sanlu>. On
September 13, Baidu issued a public statement to say that Baidu has never
filtered out any search results related to the Sanlu affair and this is
supported by the search results.

After the Baidu statement, the media quickly issued fair and objective
reports and the rumors stopped quickly. Then something shocking
happened. On September 14, the resources of the Alibaba Group repeated
and spread the rumors. On the front pages of Alibaba and Taobao,
shocking headlines such as <The Sanlu milk powder crisis revealed that Baidu
is the biggest criminal organization on the Internet>, <Netizens revealed
that Sanlu bought Baid off for 3 million RMB>, and so on. Through the
pop-up windows at Taobao and Wangwang, Alibaiba spread and pushed this
information. Baidu has taken records of the relevant information and
reserves the right to resort to legal recourse to redress the bad
consequences of these rumors.

From Alibaba:

As an important member of the Internet in China, our responsibility is to
ensure that our users and the society at large have access to accurate
information. Our mission is to ensure that each citizen shall have
safe consumer information channels. Such is the core value of the
Alibaba Group.

After the Sanlu affair was exposed, the Alibaba Group informed its
clients immediately that the products of the Sanlu Group are being
investigated by the relevant government departments. Through many
channels, we informed our users as well as the general public, and we
fulfilled the social responsibilities of a corporation citizen. We
treat the physical and mental well-being of the consumers as our corporate
social responsibility and we will expose any potential risk.

The Sanlu affair is a terrible social incident. As the world's
largest e-commerce community, we must follow through with this affair,
unlike certain companies which delete the relevant posts from its members
and thus deprive the netizens of the right to know. We regard
well-intentioned information transmission from netizens as an effective
supplement to the public's right to know as well as an essential means of
obtaining attention from the relevant government departments to handle the
affair properly. As such, we treat this as the duty of a socially
responsible corporation.

We have no intention to challenge the roles played by certain other
industry players. We do not insist that they must share the same
universal values as ours. We only hope that even as thousands of
children are suffering from the tainted milk powder, we can provide the
public with just a bit more information. More information, as opposed
to using certain technical means to hide them. When Alibaba
disseminates the information about this affair, it is not thinking about
increasing its market share or getting more protection money. Human
lives are the most important thing here. Please remember that you have
a conscience. If you did something and that something is wrong, then
making an apology cannot be harder than being a criminal accessory.

We believe that the truth will ultimately be founded upon the facts, and
all good deeds will be attested to by the members of the public. With
respect to those unsupported accusations and the information restriction
being made in the name of the law, we say that we welcome and will respond
vigorously to all the legal complaints because we are acting on behalf of
the victimized netizens and the innocent children.

The Sanlu tainted milk powder case has aroused the anger of the Chinese
people, who are directing their rage against some of the celebrity
spokespersons.

A certain Internet portal conducted an Internet poll to ask whether the
celebrity spokespersons bear responsibility for defective products? Of
88,066 participants, 36% said that the "manufacturers should be blamed but
not their celebrity spokespersons"; 28% said that the celebrity
spokespersons bear partial responsibility because they should have checked
the product first"; 34% said that the celebrity spokespersons are "largely
responsible because they betrayed the public's trust in them." Another
netizen also said: "There should have been an additional choice: the
celebrity spokespersons are not to be blamed, but they should donate their
earnings from those evil advertisements towards victim compensation."

The actress Deng Jie was a spokeswoman for the Salun Infant Milk Powder
with the slogan: "Professional production, guaranteed quality, famous brand
product, be reassured, economical too, I trust in Sanlu Infant Milk
Product!" She has been viciously lambasted by netizens. The
reporter was not able to reach her yesterday because her telephone was not
being answered. But her husband Zhang Guoli was not afraid to answer.
According to Huashang News, Zhang Guoli said that it was very wrong to
victimize the public. Sanlu gets new spokespersons each year, and Deng
Jie was the spokesperson five years ago when there were no quality problems.
Deng Jie's colleagues also confirmed that "Deng Jie spoke for a different
series of products than the ones that are currently in trouble. Sanlu
was a national company with a great reputation. Before she became a
spokesperson, she made sure that the products had all the inspection
certificates from the relevant government agencies."

The Flower Band is now in am awkward position as the spokespersons of the
Sanlu Yoghurt. Yesterday, their agent said that the contract with
Sanlu does not end until the end of the year. "When we did the
contract, we included a clause that the artists have the right to terminate
the contract if the products damage their image." They asked Sanlu to
issue a statement to relieve the band of any responsibility but there has
been no response from Sanlu so far. They are seeking legal help at
this poin.

According to information, the Flower Band had conducted market research
before they decided to become Sanlu spokespersons. "The research
showed that Sanlu is an established brand in China. But as
entertainment workers, we cannot verify the health permits. We can
only look at the relevant material ... After the current incident, the band
is very angry and wants to do something for the public. Although the
band did not speak for the Sanlu milk powder, they were speaking for a Sanlu
product. I don't agree that this matter should be blamed on the Flower
Band. But if you speak for a product, you must assume the
responsibility because many people buy the product because of them. If
they took fees as spokespersons, they must accept social responsibility."

When Xue Jianing learned that the Sanlu milk powder was tainted, she was
incensed. She told the reporter yesterday that she was quite innocent.
As a brand spokesperson, she is extremely careful. Before filming the
ad spot, she asked Sanlu to let her personally taste the product that she is
speaking on behalf of. Xue Jianing said: "I thought that this incident
occurred very unexpectedly. I feel a lot of regret as a spokesperson.
However, I was speaking for the Sanlu yoghurt and not the Sanlu milk powder.
These two products have different sources for the milk. Therefore, I
feel very blameless." Xue Jianing said: "Before shooting an ad spot, I
will make special inquiries about the quality of the product, including the
nutritional values. I will personally taste the products and only
undertake the project if I feel that there is no problem.

Some netizens discovered that Jiang Wenli had been a spokesperson for
Sanlu infant milk powder. They asked her: "Does your child take Sanlu
milk powder?" The reporter called up her agent Ms. Chang, who said
that Jiang Wenli was quite innocent because she has only represented the
Yashili milk powder but never Sanlu. However, the CCTV Network News
program jsut indicated that Yashili milk powder also contained melamine.
Ms. Chang responded that Jiang Wenli was a Yashili spokesperson a year ago:
"We had gone to examine the factory ourselves. The company was a
renowned corporation with all the inspection certificates. I don't
feel that Jiang Wenli needs to be held responsible for this, because there
was no problem with the batch of products that she spoke for. Her
contract expired a year ago." The reporter asked, "When Jiang Wenli
took on the project, she just gave birth to a baby. Did she feed
Yashili milk powder to her baby?" Ms. Chang mumbled: "I don't know
about that."

[017]They've Come Up
With The Fall Guys In The Sanlu Tainted Baby Formula Case! (09/15/2008)
(China.com)

The Hebei provincial police announced that they have formally arrested
two suspects in the case of the tainted Sanlu baby formula. In recent
days, the Hebei provincial public security bureau has been working hard to
nab the suspected criminals through interrogation, investigation and
obtaining evidence in order to solve the case and stop the illegal
activities. On the evening of September 14, the Shijiazhuang city
Zhengding county people's court approved the arrest of the Geng brothers for
producing and selling poisoned and harmful food.

According to police information, one of the Geng brothers set up a milk
farm to sell milk to the Sanlu Group. This was a family operation in
which his wife, his daughter and two hired hands worked. The younger
brother drove the three-ton truck to carry the milk to the Sanlu Group.

The farm had a total of 307 cows. Towards the end of 2007, the milk
from the Geng farm was repeatedly rejected for quality reasons and entire
truckloads had to be dumped, resulting in economic losses. Later, Geng
learned that adding melamine would enable the milk to pass the protein test.
By asking around, Geng found a industrial chemical shop in Shijiazhuang
which sold him 20 kilograms of melamine. He added the melamine into
the milk according to the right proportion and sold it to the Sanlu Group.
This same company went to Geng two more times to sell mor emelamine.
Thereafter, the Geng brothers produced and sold three tons of
melamine-tainted milk to Sanlu every day.

During the police interrogation, Geng admitted that Sanlu wanted pure
milk without chemical additives. When asked if he was aware of the
consequences o fhis action, Geng claimed: "I never asked and I did not want
to ask. I only know that it does not harm people." His motive
was to pass the Sanlu inspection in order to sell his milk. Geng also
acknowledged that he and his family never drank the melamine-tainted milk
themselves.

According to the police, nineteen other suspects have also confessed to
the police.

In 2008, Taiwan had two equally popular presidents, Chen Shui-bian and Ma
Ying-jeou. Today, Taiwan has fallen to the low of discussing whether
having a crooked president was better or worse than having a stupid
president. The former sacrificed the public interest and toyed with
the law in order to stuff his pockets; the latter sat on the sideline and
avoid responsibility in order to look aloof. The actions (or lack
thereof) of these either crooked or bad presidents make things even worse in
Taiwan right now.

Which is the worse -- the crooked president or the stupid president?
It is sad that Taiwan should fall so low as to discuss this strange subject.
For the past week, all the news was about the problems created by the former
and current presidents. The crooked president visits the investigtors'
office to offer all sorts of explanations and covers for the flow of the
state secret fees as well as the huge sums in his overseas accounts.
The stupid president stirred up the hornet's next by voluntarily suggesting
that his '633' electioneering campaign slogan will not be realized until at
least eight years later, thus damaging the economic confidence in Taiwan.

...

During his eight years as president, Chen Shui-bian was accustomed to say
what he felt like. He did not respect his own words and promises.
He disrespected the laws and regulations. He was presumptuous about a
president who is savvy about the laws can play the laws at will. He
did never things that are on the edge and even beyond.

... During his presidency, Chen Shui-bian and his family realized that
the state will provide them with an adequate lifestyle for the rest of their
lives. In other words, they won't have to worry about any livelihood
pressures for decades afterwards. The point about this royal treatment
is to eliminate any temptation for the president to become corrupt.
But Ah Bian's family chose to actively 'save money for the children' during
his two terms. This is clearly against the national interests to
gather wealth that he did not actually need.

... The clean character helped Ma Ying-jeou win the presidency amidst the
mess left behind by Chen Shui-bian. But it was not enough to turn Ma
Ying-jeou into a responsible and effective president.

... Over the past three months, the most serious problem is not the
depressing economic statistics in Taiwan. Instead it is the sense of
the people that the cowering and evasive attitude of the government and the
president in particular.

Incredibly, over these more than 100 days, Ma Ying-jeou occasionally
appeared grim-faced during typhoons and floods but otherwise showed no
concern or worry. Being concerned and worried may not enough to solve
the problems, but an unconcerned and unworried president can never convince
the people that he genuinely cares. Why can't a president who has time
to go jogging any time also gather public confidence and strength to push
Taiwan along at the critical moment to overcome the difficulties? A
failing president is not going to pass just because his predecessor failed
or is failing even more so!

A few days ago, a short video clip of a female worker at a Yoshinoya
restaurant being raped by three male colleagues was posted on the Internet.
The police arrested three male suspects quickly, but the video clip is
achieving a wider circulation through postings at overseas pornographic
websites. While the female victim is being carefully protected by the
police with respect to her identity and person, the psychological harm from
the Internet is escalating. A human flesh search has turned up the
photos of three different girls who could be her.

Last week, a netizen also posted the pictures of a university student and
identified him as one of the three male suspects. This university
student has a resemblance to one of the suspects in the video clip
(including the glasses and facial features). Many netizens believed
that this was the right person and condemned him: "You are better off dead
than alive," "you must feel proud because a few hundred thousand people now
know you," "you piece of human trash, have you prepared yourself for jail by
wiping your arse clean?" The information on him was also circulated
via email, mobile phone messages and other methods.

Yesterday, the three male suspects appeared in court. According to
the court records, their names do not match that of the male university
student.

"I saw that the netizens was accusing me wrongly. I thought that
this kind of wrongful blaming behavior is out of control on the Internet,
and I can only choose to ignore it. On Thursday night, I was eating
dinner at home and I found out that an Internet news portal as well as a
free local English-language newspaper published the Internet photos (see
The Standard). They described me as a rape suspect! I
was scared! I threw down the chopsticks and rushed to the police
station to file a report!"

When he got home, he became very nervous. "I rarely go to the
discussion forums. But overnight, I became obsessed with the Internet
discussion forums because I wanted to see how the netizens are accusing me
wrongfully!" His blog was not spared either, as thousands of people
came every day to leave vicious curses. "I was mentally distressed.
Before I step out into the street, I would think: Damn, am I going to beaten
up? I was afraid of being identified as a rapist. Man, I did not
rape anyone! How could I commit such a dastardly act? I hope the
criminals get what they deserve! I feel very wronged. I am very
depressed. What should I do if I go to a job interview and the boss
says, 'I've seen you before. You are the rapist!' What should I
do?"

He has received dozens of calls from friends each day. "The friends
know me. They know that I have worked at that Yoshinoya restaurant.
They call me to offer solace. Some of them even got on the Internet to
clarify things on my behalf. I am very touched!"

This is yet another gross insult against China made by the international
anti-China forces. They have health problems with food in other
countries as well, so why can't China also have them? Why are they
only condemning China?

Will non-poisoned baby formula solve the health problem for babies?
Adults who don't drink milk powder also have kidney stones. Therefore,
the western system of non-poisoned baby formula will not solve the problem
of kidney stones.

Don't forget that the baby formula industry has been in development
overseas for almost a century whereas it has only been several decades for
China. The baby formula industry in China has progressed continuously
during this time. China cannot be expected to arrive at perfection
immediately. Gradual steps are taken to reach the non-poisoned
condition, as appropriate to the existing conditions in China.

Boycotting or opposing Sanlu can only make the Sanlu problem more
complicated. We should use a dialogue approach where we keep
communicating slowly even as we sip more Sanlu baby formula. Baby
formula can develop only in a stable environment. If Sanlu collapses,
the entire Chinese baby formula industry will be thrown into chaos and the
western baby formula companies will take over China.

The history of baby formula in other nations showed that they all went
through a gradual purification process to transition from a number of
complicated impure baby formula to a perfect unpoisoned one. The idea
that the Chinese people should be able to have healthy and unpoisoned baby
formula instantaneously from the start is actually a huge western conspiracy
to destroy the Chinese baby formula industry. The Chinese baby formula
industry is still young and fragile. It will take some time for
Chinese baby formula not to be poisoned. If the western standards are
adopted, it will take more than a year just to recall the 7,000 tons of
poisoned baby power. How can the Chinese baby formula industry
progress under those circumstances?

The western baby formula companies grew to be very big before they began
to recall bad products. Do you think that Sanlu does not want the
Chinese people to have good baby formula? Their problem is that this
is not yet feasible at this time. The Chinese people should keep the
big picture in mind. They should drink poisoned baby formula for a few
decades and sacrifice one or two generations of people until Sanlu grows big
enough to challenge the western companies. Then Sanlu can gradually
produce unpoisoned baby formula for infants, assuming there are any infants
still alive.

The situation in the east is different from the west, and the quality of
the peoples are different. China absolutely cannot unconditionally
take to drinking the western-style unpoisoned baby formula. The
western world is less populous, and they have enough baby formula to consume
without adding poison. China has such a huge population that all the
milk in all the cows in the world would not be enough to feed them with
fully westernized pure baby formula. Therefore poison had to be added.

Although the Sanlu baby formula is poisoned, it was able to keep the
hundreds of millions of Chinese infants from going hungry. Who else
has accomplished so much in the history of mankind?

When the anti-China hostile forces boycott China's Sanlu baby formula,
the ultimate victims are the Chinese infants. We call for all Chinese
patriots to unite and express our solidarity by drinking Sanlu baby formula
in abundance.

If you are a Chinese person, you must support this declaration!

To appreciate the sarcasm, you need to compare this essay against Mr. Li Writes To BBC. The
style and arguments are similar. While that other essay seems
plausible, this one is outright absurd. You read: "They should drink
poisoned baby formula for a few decades and sacrifice one or two generations
of people until Sanlu grows big
enough to challenge the western companies. Then Sanlu can gradually
produce unpoisoned baby formula for infants, assuming there are any infants
still alive." This cannot be serious.

First, there is the thesis that Regina Ip and the DAB divided the
pro-Beijing votes by arrangement (including the mythical 20,000 votes that
were held back until 8pm so that the pan-democrats cannot react in time).
In the end, Regina Ip got 61,073 votes, the DAB got 60,417 votes and the
Civic Party got 82,600 votes (enough for two seats). So was there a
bad allocation decision (possibly due to the distorted exit poll data)
between Ip and the DAB? What if the DAB gets 83,000 votes to win two
seats while Ip still gets in with 39,000 votes?

From the maps at
Kai Chi Leung's site (raw data at the
Legco Election site), the top five voting stations f or Regina Ip
account for a 10% share of her total votes, and they are all middle-class
areas that have never been DAB strongholds. More generally, the DAB
gets more votes than Ip in areas such as Kennedy Town, North Point, Sau Kei
Wan, Chai Wan and Wah Foo. The people in these areas are relatively
less educated and poorer. Meanwhile, Regina Ip gets more votes than
the DAB in areas such as the Middle Levels, Tai Koo City, Happy Valley and
Pok Fu Lam. The people in these areas are relatively better educated
and richer. So Regina Ip is getting the votes that the DAB were not
getting before. In the absence of Regina Ip, the DAB may not be
getting her votes.

The implication here is that Regina Ip poses a bigger danger to the
pan-democrats which has traditionally assumed that they own the middle-class
vote. The following is a scatterplot at
Car and
Pier of the voting station shares for Tanya Chan (Civic Party) and
Regina Ip. The correlation is positive. Wherever the votes for
Tanya Chan go up, the same for Regina Ip, and vice versa.

So the Hong Kong political map should be two-dimensional (social
class (lower and middle) and politics (pro Beijing/establishment and
pro-democracy).

A slightly different political map is given by Kursk (at My1510.cn):

In this map, the vertical dimension is "pro government/establishment" on
the top and "fighting for individual civil right/non-establishmentarian" at
the bottom. The horizontal dimension is "leftist economics" on the
left and "rightist economics" on the right. The Liberal Party is in
the top right quadrant; the Civic Party and the Democratic Party are on the
bottom right quadrant; the Federation of Trade Unions and the DAB Party are
in the top left quadrant; the ADPL, Confederation of Trade Unions and the
League of Social Democrats are in the bottom left quadrant.

In December 2005, six female workers from Hubei were sent by the Huangshi-based
Dongchuang Overseas Labor Service Co, one of 21 legitimate overseas labor
service agencies based in Hubei, to train in Japan. One year later,
they became interns. According to the report by Mo Bangfu, a Chinese
writer in Japan, the Japan New-Generation
Overseas Chinese Newspaper, the women were actually working for
Techoclean, a clothes washing firm. The women often had to work late
in the night including Saturdays and Sundays. For their overtime work,
they received compensation of 300 to 400 yen when the minimum overtime wage
was supposed to be 810 yen.

In a telephone interview with the YZZK reporter, one of the female
workers named Duan said: "Our basic monthly wage in Japan was 50,000 yen
with overtime hourly wage of 300 yen. We worked every day from 8:30am
to 11:00pm. In our second year, the overtime wage was increased to 350
yen per hour, and we worked from 8:30am to 12:00 midnight every day.
This continued until June 1, 2008 when the hours were reduced to from 9:00am
to 11:00pm and our overtime wage became 450 yen per hour." She said
that they learned from a Japanese publication that this pay level was
illegal in Japan. On August 20, they spoke to the company director and
demanded improvement of working conditions and back pay. The director
said that he would respond on August 22.

Duan recalled that on the morning of August 22, a dozen men and women
charged into their dormitory and dragged them onto a vehicle. The
workers resisted. One worker named Hu escaped but the other five were
tossed into the vehicle. On the way, the workers tried to jump out of
the vehicle, and they were beaten again. When the vehicle arrived at
the airport, the airplane had already left. So the workers were taken
back to the dormitory. Duan was able to escape by climbing out of a
window. She hid in the farm fields and eventually made contact with
the other escapee named Hu. They were then taken to the Japanese labor
union headquarters. A third woman named Zhang broke her leg while
trying to jump from the second floor to escape, and she has been
hospitalized.

On August 25, the director of Technoclean faced the press and labor union
workers and admitted: "If these were Japanese citizens, the company would
not have sent them back by force. We feel very sorry to cause the
injuries to the female workers." He admitted the wage levels violated
the law, and he would consider back compensation. When the time came
to give his reply, he denied that anyone was ever beaten violently and he
said that there was no problem with the wages.

The females workers told Mo Bangfu that their families in Hubei are being
threated by Dongchuang general manager Wang Xiang and her husband Wei
Jianhua. Wei said: "In Huangshi, I know people on both sides of the
law. There is no way anyone can fight me!" Wang said: "We are
well-prepared. This company is presently blacklisted by Japan and no
longer able to sent workers to Japan. But I own another company, and I
can continue with business as usual. I am not afraid of these female
workers. I know people in the provincial government. I am not
afraid of them."

On September 5, Wang Xiang went to Japan to deal with the matter herself.
Mo Bangfu said that he spoke to Wang and she said: "I don't care if I have
to pay money to them in Japan. When the female workers get back to
Hubei, I will make them cough the money out. I want to let them know
who is in charge in Hubei. I will give their families a good show."

Dongchuang vice-president Wang Nian is the younger sister of Wang Xiang.
She said that Mo Bangfu's report is inaccurate. She said that three of
the female workers have come down to the company to say that they were not
maltreated in Japan. They even provided a written statement to that
effect. Wang Nian said: "They voluntarily wrote the statement.
Afterwards, they applied their palm prints. They said that they were
very happy with their work and life in Japan."

On September 9, the female worker named Huang was interviewed by
telephone. She said that the Dongchuang leaders "are talking absolute
nonsense." On August 24, Huang and two other female workers had been
forced to return to China. Since then, their families have received
countless number of threatening phone calls to get them to cooperate with
the company or else face extermination. On September 1, Wang Xiang's
husband Wei Jianhua insisted that they must come down to the company.
They were told to hand over their passports and sign a document. When
they refused, a group of people at the company threatened to use force.
They were forced to sign.

After Mo Bangu's report appeared on the Internet, the netizens were
infuriated. At Sina.com, there are several hundred comments already:
"This is going too far. Wang Xiang says that she has somebody in the
provincial government. Let her say who that is, and we will see if
this is a person or a 'greedy dog.'" "It is sad that the Japanese have
not stopped using Chinese slave labor. We must punish all the Chinese
traitors." The netizens used the "human flesh search" on Wang Xiang
and Dongchuang Company and paralyzed their phone lines with calls.

Sanlu says that the cow farmer is responsible
The cow farmers says that the cow is responsible
The cow hums and haws and finally says one word:
Grass
The grass feels a lot of grievance and says with tears in the
eyes:
If someone is to blame, it is my mother for giving birth to
me.
So finally the mastermind is revealed: the mother of the
grass.

Why is this so funny? The word 草 (cao) is a homonym for the
word 操, which means 'fuck.'
Thus, 草他妈 (the mother of the grass) sounds exactly like the national curse
phrase 操他妈 (fuck his mother!).

At the Shatin courtroom, the atmosphere was tense. The reporters
warned that no filming, or audio recording was allowed. Members of the
public were told that they cannot even talk notes. The following is an
artist's sketch of the three suspects.

A man, whose identity remains unknown, died after setting
himself ablaze in Shanghai's historic riverside Bund area at around 11 a.m.
on Thursday, local police and witnesses said. The man reportedly poured gas
over himself to spark the blaze on a square named after Chen Yi, a late
marshal of the Chinese People's Liberation Army beside the Huangpu River.

"I didn't see how it started, but suddenly spotted a
flame that was moving about near Chen Yi's statue," said a witness on
condition of anonymity. "It was a horrible scene." Fire fighters were sent
in immediately and the blaze was put out in about 5 minutes, he said.

The square was packed with people when the
self-immolation occurred, but nobody realized what was going on until it was
too late. No one at the site saw what the man looked like or how old he was.

When Xinhua reporters arrived at the site in the early
afternoon, the corpse had been removed by police and the ground washed, but
the air still smelt of gasoline.

At the 7pm program last night, the subject was the cases of kidney stones
in infants possibly caused by baby formula. From the public known
information as well as the front reports, it is only known that there are
cases in at least seven provinces in which infants who develop kidney stones
took the same brand of baby formula. At a moment like this, the
hospitals, the media and the citizens may have their suspicious but they
cannot be sure until there is an authoritative statement from a government
department. All we can do is to express our concerns and then we wait.
Given the previous baby formula problem in Anhui, this kind of waiting is
frustrating because time means the lives and the futures of these children.

When I got home, I checked the news. At 9pm, the Ministry of Health
confirmed that the analysis of the many cases of kidney stones in babies in
Gansu and other provinces showed that the baby formula from Sanlu was
contaminated by melamine. According to information, melamine is a
chemical material that can cause kidney/bladder stones.

At the same time, the Sanlu Group has reversed its former position.
Previously, they said that the tests by the Gansu government department
showed that their samples were acceptable. Therefore, they believed
that it was the contaminated products were contrabands. When I saw the
statement from an established brand name, I was wondering whether someone
manufactured contrabands. The Quality Inspection Department said that
it would conduct an urgent investigation to look for contrabands. Now
the truth comes out in the latest Sanlu Group statement: In its own
inspections, the company discovered that the baby formula distributed before
August 6, 2008 were contaminated by melamine. There are about 700 tons
of the baby formula out in the market, and the Sanlu Group is recalling all
baby formula produced before August 6, 2008.

... This baby formula case surfaced due to local media reports which
attracted attention from the media in other provinces. The follow-up
from the various media showed that the problem was not isolated in one
place. Some parents read the media reports and came forth to provide
more data to the media, so that the case rolled up its momentum. This
is a showcase for the watchdog function of the media, which allowed the case
to break open within a short time after the initial report.

According to Tongji Hospital Pediatrics Department deputy director Zhang
Wen, they have been treating cases of infants with kidney stone problem.
Since these ailing infants were all using the same baby formula brand, he
was worried. At around the same time, a colleague in Shanghai also
discovered a similar situation. The information had been circulating
within a small circle. Zhang Wen said that kidney stones is rare among
infants less than 12 months old, so the sudden increase over the past year
made him uneasy. "It is not a good thing for this to go on." So
on August 27, he told the story to the media. Shortly afterwards,
other media around China also reported similar cases.

Zhang Wen

On the down side is this old news report that is being hunted down all
around China. This is an earlier CCTV investigative report on quality
control at Sanlu that ended as an admiring paean to Sanlu Group at a time when
the contaminated baby powder was all over the market.

On September 2, the CCTV news program <Weekly Quality Report> showed the
first episode of the series "Made In China" titled <Behind the 1,100
inspection steps>. CCTV conducted a detail investigation of the
production of Sanlu baby formula and showed that the flagship baby formula
producer in China uses rigorous scientific management processes to guarantee
product quality.

In late July, the CCTV reporter spotted three advertising slogans in a
Beijing supermarket for Sanlu baby formula: "1,110 inspection steps,
protects the health of babies, deserves the trust of mothers!"
However, some consumers were dubious that Sanlu actually has 1,100
inspection steps. On August 1, the CCTV reporter went and made an
in-depth, detailed investigation of the quality control steps in the entire
production process from beginning to end.

The CCTV reporter first went to the Shijiazhuang cow farm. Before
entering, the CCTV reporter had to be radiated with ultraviolet light for
five minutes to kill all germs. Inside, the CCTV reporter learned that
the facility had to have three kinds of certificates (health certificates
for the cattle, immunization certificates for the cattle and health
certificates for the workers); each cow has its own computer file to
document its progeny, feed mix, immunization and milk production quantity;
Chinese medicine was used to treat diseases instead of anti-biotics;
international nutritional technologies were used to maximize productivity;
milk was extracted mechanically ...

The CCTV reporter then followed two random milk delivery trucks around
and observed the sampling inspection process. The inspector measured
the freshness, the nutritional levels, the bacterial content and other
hygiene indicators. There were 33 items on the list and the milk is
accepted only if all were passed. The CCTV reporter checked the log
and found that some milk was rejected every day due to failure on some item.
Between January and July this year, rejection occurred 476 times involving
3,532 tones of fresh milk. The CCTV reporter followed one truck of
milk rejected due to excessive acidity and observed that the milk was sent
to a pig farm to feed the pigs.

The CCTV reporter then observed the steps involving nutritional
supplements, packaging, quarantine inspection, etc. The CCTV reporter
visited five other farms and two factories and observed the same processes
were in place. By the count of the CCTV reporter, there were really
more than 1,100 inspection steps before the baby formula was sent out.

According to information, the Sanlu has more than 50 years of experience
in producing milk-related products in China. It is the leading Chinese
company for baby formula ...

According to Sanlu Gruop Vice-chairman Wang Yuliang, baby formula affects
the health and development of the next generation and the overall physiques
of the people of China. The production chain for baby formula is
relatively long, involving animal breeding, rearing, immunization, imported
raw materials, product inspection, packaging inspection and so on.
There cannot be any mistake during any step. Over the years, the Sanlu
Group has lived by its responsibility and mission to guarantee that each and
every package of its products is safe!

Yesterday, the scandal-plagued former president Chen Shui-bian returned
to his home town of Tainan. The itinerary was: a visit to his mother;
respects at the Huei-an Temple; a discussion forum with local pro-Bian
legislators; respects at the Liang-bo Temple; a radio interview.
Throughout the trip, hundreds of supporters cheered him wildly as they
chanted, "Go, Ah-bian! Go, Taiwan!"

At the discussion forum, Chen Shui-bian said: "The money-laundering case
was a political action used by Ma Ying-jeou to cover up his own incompetence
as well as let the anti-Ma demonstration 'dissolve' in the winds." He
emphasized again that his wife had transferred the money overseas without
his knowledge. He apologized for that and he promised: "The money is
being frozen at this time. When I get it back, I won't keep a cent of
it. I will donate all of it for the poor and weak people in society."

During the radio interview, supporters called in to ask him to run in the
2012 presidential election. He said: "Don't say that, because it will
only get me into trouble!" "Even though I am not running right now,
they want me dead. If I were to run today, will Ma Ying-jeou let me
go?" "If I should announce today that I, Chen Shui-bian, will fight
you (note: Ma Ying-jeou) in 2012 for the presidency, what will happen?"
But he conceded: "This is just talk because the Democratic Progressive Party
will not permit it!"

Then Chen Shui-bian turned his attention to the Democratic Progressive
Party: "Those head honchos at the Democratic Progressive Party want to run
for the presidency and they want to suspend my membership rights. I
told that not to bother because I am resigning. They are afraid that I
would drag them down!" "Many peopleo said that I am the biggest
stumbling block for Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen on the way to the presidency,
and therefore they want to remove me!"

Concerning the secret state fees, Chen Shui-bian condemned the unfairness
of the judiciary. "The verdict document made me puke, because it made
me see such a vast difference! ... When I was the president, I
respected and trusted the judiciary more than anyone else. But how can
I trust the judiciary given my fate today. Ma was judged one way, but
Ah-bian was judged another way! ... They only want to go after the
greens but not the blues! How can such a judiciary get respect?"

During the radio interview, he re-iterated that he did not engage in
graft, he did not speculate on land deals, he did not intercede in arms
deals, he did not accept bribes and not a single cent of the secret state
funds ended up in his own pocket. He repeatedly equated himself with
Taiwan by emphasizing that Ah-bian cannot fall because Taiwan cannot fall.

The officer of Chen Shui-bian has issued a press release to explain what
he meant yesterday as opposed to the deliberate misinterpretation by certain
media: "A caller wanted me to run for the presidency in 2012. I tell
everybody, 'If you love me, don't harm me this way.' I am no longer
the president and they are already harassing me this way. If I were to
announce here today that I intend to run against Ma Ying-jeou in 2012, what
do you think is going to happen to me?"

In lieu of the above story, Liberty Times has a short report on Chen
Shui-bian.

Former president Chen Shui-bian has been making trips recently to do
radio interviews in the south, but he has not been interviewed by the
Democratic Progressive Party's Anti-Corruption Committee. So the
party's investigation of the secret overseas accounts of Chen has been
bottlenecked. The committee had sent a list of sixty questions to
Chen, who has not responded. The committee also called Chen's office
several times to ask for an appointment to do any interview, but has
received no concrete answer. The Anti-Corruption Committee will meet
again tonight to decide how to communicate.

...

Some Democratic Progressive Party members wondered that since Chen
Shui-bian has time to do radio interviews in the south, then why can't he
find time to be interviewed by the Anti-Corruption Committee?

Last Sunday, Hong Kong held elections for its Legislative Council. Of the
total of 60 seats, 30 are directly elected in geographical constituencies,
while the other 30 are elected in functional constituencies. Public opinion
is reflected in the direct elections to the geographical constituencies,
while the majority of the smaller functional constituencies are controlled
by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Ever since Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 and implemented the
“one country, two systems” political system, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy
groups have been diminished because they are stifled by the Basic Law and
because of China’s United Front strategy, which includes both threats and
temptation.

...

... the rise of the pro-democracy League of Social Democrats (LSD) is
worth some attention. They were only established two years ago and have
become known for being “radical.” They support the middle and lower classes,
and are clearly opposed to the CCP. They first made themselves noticed in
last year’s district council elections. In this year’s legislative
elections, they increased their number of seats from two to three.

Wong Yuk-man (黃毓民) is the charismatic LSD leader — he has always fought the
CCP, is well spoken and dares attack his opponents. All these traits got him
elected by a landslide.

However, his criticism of more moderate members of the pro-democracy camp
stole some votes from them, and he caused the Civic Party representative in
his district to fail to get elected. Lau Chin-shek (劉千石), a former
pro-democracy activist, received even fewer votes by siding with the CCP.
This shows that the opposition between democracy and dictatorship remains
the focus of Hong Kong politics, and also that opposition between social
classes is increasing, which is something new.

[ESWN Comment:

Is this a class issue? I refer you to the maps drawn by
Dr. Leung Kai Chi
The dots on the map represent the counting stations in the Kowloon West
district and the size of the dot corresponds to percent of votes received by
the candidate (the raw data is available
here). There is a map for each candidate. The
interesting maps are:

Michael Tien lost and the maps shows that he did well only in exclusive
areas such as Kowloon Tong. Fung Kin Kee showed that it is possible to
win with grassroots support concentrated in the relatively poor Shum Shui Po
area. To Kun Sun has a similar concentration in the southern part of
the district. But what is the difference between the top two
vote-getters Lee Wai King and Wong Yuk Man? They both get lower and
middle class support. So this is not an issue about opposition between
social classes per se, because there is just as much opposition
within social classes.

So is it the opposition between 'democracy and dictatorship'? Well,
I've heard Raymond Wong used terms such as "worse than pigs and dogs" for
Hong Kong government officials, the business elite, pro-Beijing politicians
and the Chinese Communist Party. But I don't think that anyone running
in the Legco elections was going around saying President Hu Jintao and
Premier Wen Jiaobao being "worse than pigs and dogs."

The entity known as the CCP is not a monolith with one face, and the Hong
Kong Legco candidates can also read the Hong Kong public opinion polls:

Personal attacks against Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao
will probably not be well-received in Hong Kong. The people of Hong
Kong generally agree that Hu and Wen are doing a good job in managing China,
much better than people such as Tung Chee Wah, Donald Tsang, George W. Bush,
Chen Shui-bian and so on might do. But how do you criticize the
Chinese Communists but studiously not mention the names of their top
leaders?

Another consideration is "one country, two systems"
which is symmetrical in structure but extremely unbalanced in practice.
The ideal situation is one of non-interference: You go your way and I go
mine. In practice, a Hong Kong politician may want to exercise his
citizen's freedom of speech to comment on the mainland political system and
leaders. By symmetry, a mainland Chinese politician is also entitled
to do the same. But the impact is vastly different.

A Hong Kong politician says something to The Wall
Street Journal and the mainland government will just shrug it off without
causing even a ripple. A mainland leader says something to Xinhua
about how the political instability in Hong Kong (without naming any names
but everybody knows who they are) is affecting investment confidence and the
Hong Kong stock market will collapse.

More than a decade ago, a Chinese diplomat gave a speech in which he
narrated a story. At a certain UN meeting, the British representative
condemned China for not being sufficiently democratic as usual. The
Chinese representative retorted, "Your country has been promoting democracy
in Africa for more than a century, but how is it doing now?" The
British representative shut up ...

This is one example of the western nations promoting their values.
They have many methods, including hard and soft methods. The hard
methods involve the United States and Great Britain pushing democracy in the
Middle East, but all they got was a quagmire. The soft methods involve
the western media using their international speech rights to say awful
things about countries which do not have western-style democracy.
China appears to be the constant target of the western media. This is
understandable, because Chinese-style democracy is different from the
western style and China has blazed its own trail. The easiest to say
that your stuff is good by sayingthat the stuff from the other side is bad.
The western media are very good at that and they can pull these types of
reports out of thin air. If you want to go back further in time, there
was the <Death of Hong Kong> front page story in TIME magazine in 1997.
If you want something closer in time, there are all those stories about the
Olympic torch relays earlier this year.

If there are no western tourists coming to China and no Chinese studying
overseas, the western media could say whatever they want and they own the
international speech rights. If you cannot see for yourself, you have
to trust them. But times are different, as more and more western
visitors come to China and more and more Chinese tourists travel overseas.

According to the statistics, only 280,000 persons traveled from China to
overseas between 1949 and 1978. That would be fewer than 10,000
persons per annum. In 2007 alone, 40 million Chinese citizens traveled
overseas, while 56 million foreigners came to China.

The western tourists are perplexed because China is completely unlike
what their own media are reporting. The overseas Chinese students are
perplexed because very few western media reports have anything good to say
about China. Why?

The western media which own the international speech rights think that
this is the only way to show off the superiority of western values.
But they are mistaken. Those who have seen the real China realized
that they had been deceived by the western media. Meanwhile, the
hypocrisy of the western media are made known to the Chinese people going
abroad and they become ever more patriotic. Even if the majority of
western media were to switch positions today, they are merely reflecting the
true state of affairs because the western tourists have seen too much and
the television broadcasts are live. However, the western media will
inevitably revert to true form.

Some western media may be perplexed by the fact that they used to be able
to report whatever they want without meeting any protests from China.
How is it that any negative comment that they now make will draw a lot of
protests?

This is because the customarily arrogant western media may not have
realized that they had lost China! They are losing the admiration and
trust of the Chinese youth. Over the past three decades, the Chinese
government has led the country to an astonishing economic growth, and many
citizens have benefited from it. The Chinese who travel overseas
during this period are the rapidly rising middle class and the
intelligentsia. When they see the good things in China being
badmouthed in the western media, what else is this but hypocrisy?

Ultimately, the Chinese people want to achieve prosperity and national
power through democratization. But the western media seem to only want
democracy for the sake of democracy and they don't care what happens to
China afterwards.

The Chinese form of democracy guarantees first and foremost the right to
survive and develop. But the western media wants to promote its own
form of democracy according to its own ideas. They don't care what
happens to a country afterwards. For example, the United States went
into Iraq to promote democracy. When things don't work out, they bail
out. What does democracy in Iraq matter to the United States? In
the past, Great Britain and France have promoted democracy in Africa, until
the continent became the Third World within the Third World? What does
democracy in Africa matter to Great Britain and France?

The promotion of these double standards has only exposed their hypocrisy
in front of the Chinese and foreign people. This is something that the
western media did not imagine. If they want to keep up with the times,
they should correct their mistakes. Since they are the media, truth
should come first. In reply to a question a few days ago about the
suspension of a Chinese journalist in Germany, the Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs spokesperson said that the media ought to observe the basic
rules -- to report in an objective and fair manner. This is easier
said than done for the western media.

In a press release from the office of former president Chen Shui-bian:
"Adults are responsible for what they do and the children are not involved.
Please do not involve the innocent third generation." This was in
reference to the report in Next Weekly that the former president's daughter
Chen Hsin-yu intends to go to live in American with her three sons.
This article showed the photos of the four grandchildren of the former
president together with information about their schools and so on. In
the press release, the magazine was said to be recklessly endangering the
personal safety as well as violating the human rights of the children.
In so doing, the magazine may be violating the law regarding child welfare.

In rebuttal, the Next Weekly publisher/chief editor said that Chen
Shui-bian had previously published family photos including his grandchildren
without any masking.

This story got one-third of the front page with the other two-thirds
going to the DAB-LP political spat. The headline is: "Police arrest 3
persons in rape video case."

The police arrested three men yesterday for the rape of a female
colleague in a restaurant. Someone took a video with a mobile phone
camera and posted it on the Internet. Based upon the information shown
on the video, police contacted the restaurant group manager and were led to
one of the branch restaurants. They managed to contact the victim who
identified three men. Shortly afterwards, the police arrested three
men at their homes. The three men were age 16, 17 and 19.

[ESWN Comment: If you read through the story above, you have no idea which
restaurant it is. The story was written that way to protect the
newspaper from legal trouble, at least in the opinion of the newspaper.
Other newspapers may have a different opinion as the story below shows.]

The Japanese restaurant chain Yoshinoya is swept into a rape case.
Recently, a video has been spread widely on the Internet and by mobile
phone, in which a girl wearing what looked like a Yoshinoya uniform was
raped by two men wearing similar uniforms in an office located in Shatin.
Yesterday, the police arrested three men age 16, 17 and 19 on suspicion of
rape.

The video was taken by a mobile phone camera. In the video, there
were two men and one girl wearing what looked like Yoshinoya uniforms.
The female was having intercourse with one man on the table, while another
man fondled her breasts. In the video, the female looked unwilling and
said: "Don't! It hurts!" Meanwhile, another man was filming and
making comments. Another female was heard to say: "Call 999!"
But the cameraman said: "Don't!"

Yoshinoya issued a statement last evening to confirm that the company
reported to the police after it learned about the existence of the video.
The company will cooperate with the police fully but it has nothing more to
say for now while the investigation is ongoing.

As for the other newspapers, NOTHING. The biggest happening on the
Hong Kong Internet does not exist.